Bonnie recaps the fate of her father, Disposable
Black Person #788 to Jeremy. Jeremy tries to comfort her – but they cannot
touch because she is dead, just like her father. She also warns Jeremy that
Silas is after Catherine so they need to make sure he doesn’t get his hands on
her (I suggest this should be achieved by dropping Catherine in a woodchipper).
On to Katherine who is not having a good day – having crawled
out of the car wreck she is now injured and reduced to hitchhiking. Except
Silas’s mind control means the woman who stops for her maces her (wow, this is
your definition of “keeping an eye out for someone”? Remind me never to let
this woman look after my pets!). Katherine punches her unconscious – and that
hurts as well. Being human is no fun! Especially not when Matt comes out of the
woods and holds her at gun point
Katherine, you’ve just been captured by Matt. The show’s
woobie and general whining victim. The shame should kill you know.
Meanwhile, Stefan continues to have happy dappy
hallucinations interrupted by inconvenient drowning. And, despite that, it’s still
a fate less horrible than Katherine having to live with the fact Matt just
captured her.
At college, the whole campus is mourning Megan (crowd
scene! Time
for some racial diversity!) and Caroline is being all kinds of arseholish
about it. But they do remind us of all the mysteries around Megan – and confirm
that her death has been covered up by the powers that be, just as the Mystic
Falls Founders council would have (praise be to the Founders!).
The person who signed off on the fake death certificate
is a Dr. Wensly Maxfield - who,
coincidentally, is also a microbiology professor at the college – and Elena has
switched her and Caroline to his class. Caroline is stroppy at this because
this involves going to a class where she may actually have to work. Ha! Like
anyone student on Vampire Diaries has ever attended a class! Caroline protests “what
happened to getting drunk and making bad decisions about boys?”
Uh – that would be Vampire Diaries season 1-4. Actually, it’d be a bit of a twist if you spent a season not drinking and making truly awful decisions about boys, I’m just saying.
Back in Mystic Falls, Damon begs Founderella to search
the quarry where Stefan is having his fun drowning hallucinations, finally
convincing her by warning her that he may feel ultra-mega guilty about living a
happy life while Stefan suffered a terrible, awful fate. I choose to believe
that Liz has no patience for more angst so agrees. And Jeremy tells Damon that
Matt has Katherine – and Damon is as shocked as I am that Matt has actually
been useful. Catherine herself is snarky and even lampshades that she’s
leverage just like the Moonstone waaaaay back in season 2 when Katherine was a
viable enemy.
Elena and Caroline actually attend class (probably having
a shocked moment discovering that classrooms actually exist) and Elena arranges
more flirting between Caroline and her oh-so-obvious-and-oh-so-dead love
interest Jesse. Dr. Maxfield arrives and is very snarky and quickly kicks Caroline
and Elena out because his class isn’t for freshmen.
Elena calls Damon to whine about it – she didn’t try to
glamour him because she assumes he’s on vervain – Damon asks whether she used
torture, Elena laughs and then Damon laughs and they both laugh about the fact
that Damon’s a serial killer, ho ho ho how hilarious. I kid you not. They actually
laugh about Damon’s serial killing ways
Silas interrupts the call before they can move on to how
much fun killing people and hearing them scream. Elena hangs up as Silas compels
her too – and then he tells her a variation of all the bad news in Mystic Falls
– Jeremy has been expelled had a fight with Damon and has now run off. Elena
asks where Jeremy is and Silas wonders if she has any ideas
Because, of course, Jeremy has Katherine (brief cameo –
Katherine is a whiny whiny human and Silas’s little mind control trick is
causing them headaches – and making them knock people out so they don’t contact
Stefan. Also “keep an eye out for her” also includes drawing shotguns now).
Damon rushes to college to fill Caroline in on the whole
Silas situation (would it have been better if he told Caroline and Elena
earlier? Of course it would!) And Silas keeps using Elena and her phone to try
and get hold of Jeremy – and get a tip off he then runs past Elena to get a
pretty good idea where they’ve gone.
Damon catches up with Silas and grabs him by the neck…
really? Damon, you’ve done this to Originals, you’ve done this to Katherine,
you’ve done this to all kinds of vampires who are thousands of years older than
you – threatening violence against things that can reduce you to chunky salsa
is a bad idea.
To the college bonfire party thing with Damon randomly
threatening people looking for Elena and Caroline trying to restrain him from
losing his ever loving mind. Elena is at the party, angsty because Damon has
been keeping secrets from her and she meets up with
Jesse-the-so-not-going-to-survive-the-season. He talks about Dr. Maxfield and
gives her clues about the secret society he’s supposed to be part of while
waving a piece of firewood-that-totally-isn’t-a-stake-honest. Whether he was
going to use it or set Elena up with a trap because moot because Damon arrives
and knocks him unconscious. Because… reasons.
Damon and Elena find some time alone and revelations are
paused for shirtlessness and humping – and vervain water. Ouch, kinky. Elena
ties the surprised Damon to a chair and starts to stake him until he spits the
vervain water back at her, breaking the mind control. Yup, Silas whammied Elena
to kill Damon – I am thankful this didn’t happen. The amount of angst this would
have caused would have been astronomical and after season 4 I am so done with
Elena angst.
Silas has craftily linked Elena’s urge to kill Damon to
her anger at him, which means Damon telling her what’s going on leads to more
murder urges until she nails herself to a chair (ouch) so she can listen.
And listen she does – but between Jeremy expelled, Damon
not caring about the death of Bonnie’s dad, Jeremy guarding Katherine – Elena is
not happy. The compulsion kicks in and she rips out the gas line from the fire
and starts striking matches… Damon tries to get her to think of something she
wants more than killing Damon – the only way to break the compulsion – and settles
on getting her to think about Stefan, the woo-woo bad feelings she’s been
having about him all summer and how he’s suffering. It breaks through her rage
and returns her to normal
Yes, worry over Stefan not love for Damon broke through. Love Triangle’s back on guys! Yay.
To the camp where Jeremy & co are, Katherine is still
really really whiney and Jeremy takes pity on her (don’t fall for it Jeremy).
Silas drops by and tries to mind control Matt aaaand it doesn’t work and Matt
screams for Jeremy and Katherine to run. Silas is rather bemused by this – and it’s
not because after 4 seasons he now eats Vervain as a salad. Apparently
the woman who returned his ring has done something to him – is already in Matt’s
head. Silas calls her “Traveller” and snaps Matt’s neck.
Pesky, but he is wearing the Gilbert
evil-making-resurrection ring. Only now we get more info (or retconning on
the ring), Matt is on the otherside, all ghostly and invisible and Bonnie shows
up to be his helpful guide and servant (of course) on the ring. He has to
reconnect to his body – and apparently each time you die with the ring you wake
up further from your body, so have to travel further to get back. Of course
Matt then realises that Bonnie on the ghostly side.
She tries to pass it off as no big deal, depreciating her problems and saying she’s ok. But Matt offers comfort and denies that it’s ok – her being dead and her dad being dead are both very much not Ok. He holds her and Bonnie cries
Jeremy wants to go back for Matt, Katherine puts this
down as a bad idea and since she’s had 500 years of practice running, she’s
pretty much an expert. Jeremy says this is why people treat her like an object
and runs back anyway.
Jeremy finds Matt’s body and checks on the ring – and Silas
appears noticing the ring must have woo-woo. Jeremy isn’t much bothered – Silas
is slower and weaker than a vampire and all his scary tricks don’t work on
Jeremy, the Hunter. Jeremy is stronger and faster than Silas and after some
fighting he gets the upper hand – until Silas stabs Jeremy by pushing a branch
through his own chest and out the other side. Silas is immortal, he can pull
tricks like that.
Jeremy looks like he’s a gonna – but Katherine rides to the rescue and shoots Silas, twice. What, he can ram a tree branch through his chest but buck shot is his Achilles heel? And yes, Katherine’s on the redemption train! Choo-choo all aboard those who want their past sins completely ignored!
Matt and Bonnie return to his body and Matt realises he’s
going to forget everything, including Bonnie’s death. He tells her that she and
Jeremy can’t keep it a secret and that she can’t come to terms with her dad’s
death if she can’t manage her own (which seems somewhat bizarre and I bet
appears in no grief councillor manual ever). Matt wakes up and Jeremy notices
Bonnie, he talks to her and she tearfully says she isn’t ready to be dead yet –
and doesn’t know how to handle her dad’s death – how is she going to handle the
sheriff calling, people looking for her to tell her the news? Jeremy promises
to cover for her and to be there for support.
Meanwhile Caroline and Jesse have some alone time discussing
relationships and Jesse’s broken down long-distance relationship. Awwww.
Silas checks in at a petrol station for some blood from
the whammied clerk and the Travellers arrive (who he first insults as “gypsies”),
they were using Matt as a “host” apparently – and they want Silas entombed
again, apparently what the Travellers have always wanted. So says the woman
right before stabbing her companion in the neck. She’s not a team player and
isn’t especially interested in what the Travellers want.
Back to Elena and she’s dropping out of college, leaving
Caroline to do her investigating so she can go looking for Stefan. She and
Damon have a whole bonding moment (where he lets go the whole Elena having
psychic dreams about Stefan) and Dr. Maxfield shows up. He knew her father,
knew Dr. Gilbert’s research and isn’t phased when she confronts him about
faking a death certificate, when he comes back he wants to talk to her.
And Liz (who will always be Founderella to me) has found
something in the quarry. A casket, the meta box Stefan was sealed in. Liz
wisely didn’t open it in case she had to deal with a hungry Stefan but when
they open it there’s a body inside – not Stefan’s but by his slashed throat and
chalk white skin, probably Stefan’s meal.
Ok, some notes among the sarcasm – Jeremy, the reason why
people treat Katherine like an object is that is how she has been cast – either
enemy to thwart, desirable item to possess or thing to kill in petty vengeance.
She has spent most of the series as the antagonist but that itself has been
driven by her constant need to find something, anything, to stop Klaus killing
her. And considering what Klaus is and how impossible he is to defeat? I can’t
say that her actions haven’t been at least somewhat understandable
Far be it from me to like Katherine – but putting her
treatment down to the fact she’s mean and doesn’t run back into certain death
is a… shaky summation of her character.
Do I even have to talk about the fact Elena and Damon
openly joke about the fact Damon is a serial killer?
Bonnie – ok some things I liked. I liked that she cried.
I liked that she grieved. I liked that Elena and Caroline spent a millisecond
worrying about her (not much more but it was something). I liked that both Matt
and Jeremy sought to offer comfort and recognised that Bonnie was going through
some shit that needed acknowledgement and support and that she isn’t just the witchy
turret of special powers. These are pluses
But her position inherently makes her an outsider (and
spiritual guide. Honestly, even when dead Bonnie’s there helping) and cuts off
how much support anyone can even offer her – let alone how many people even know
she needs support. It’s like they’ve finally got the cast to acknowledge Bonnie
may have issues that are deserving of their attention – but only after there’s
a barrier to prevent their attention actually reaching her
And who are the Travellers? Are they supposed to be Romani?
In which case why use “Travellers” (which can apply to a wide variety of
nomadic groups and even itinerant workers who don’t belong to a stereotypically
nomadic ethnicity) rather than Romani?
I have a minor concern about the number of plot lines. We
have Silas. We have Stefan and wherever he is. We have Katherine. We have the
Travellers. We have the mysterious Dr. Maxfield and the odd vampire knowledge
on campus – there’s a lot going on.
